


Transliterator

by slightlyjillian



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Multi, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-27
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyjillian/pseuds/slightlyjillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>set during Gundam Wing episode 22.  What should have been a routine inspection of a mobile suit ends up revealing more about Nichol's past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transliterator

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Alithea's weekly challenge. "Write a pairing that you would never write." Plus... I thought I'd see if the idea of any Nichol/Anyone made me uncomfortable... and oh, _did I find one._

He had been a small boy. No, not small. Lean, with an angled face and large hands. When his height steadied, his shoulders had become more broad. The hollows of his cheeks filled in with soft flesh and, occasionally, purple bruises.

Nichol didn't clearly remember those early years except for the fleeting images of himself that he might catch from a reflection. Dark eyes finding his own eyes in the one mirror decorating the hallway stretched between Nichol's room, a bed with no sheets and a desk set with no paper, to the place where he went for his lessons. Nichol didn't remember much of the training except for the memory of his muscles. Flinching at a certain cadence of laughter, cold sweats when birds sang, or the tight speed in his shallow punches against a boxing bag.

His childhood summarized in the image of his own eyes staring back, dull and disengaged, from the metal shine of the Lightening Count's mask.

...

_"The weak even enjoy being controlled by the strong."_

He had been drifting in a thoughtless state. His posture, however, was engaged on the latest blue print for the mobile dolls, while Lady Une prepped the officers with an update regarding a guest in tow with the Vayeate and the Mercurius. Glancing around the table, no one else reacted. Had he heard correctly? The words echoed again in a voice that was certainly not the Colonel's in either of her personality moods.

_"No, I'll fight you!"_

A child's voice. Shifting in his seat, Nichol put a hand over his mouth. The security chief asked a question. Une answered.

_"How will you do that, Nikolai?"_

Like freezing waves, the conversation played over top the Colonel's inquiry. "How will you do that, Nichol?"

"How will I?" Nichol's fingers twisted into fists. They'd been talking about the foreign suit. He was on Barge. Ten years older than the twelve year-old who had been challenged with that question. "Of course, I'll lead the inspection of the suit when we get to the colony."

"Personally or are you going to send one of your mobile dolls to do it?" The soldier next to Nichol was a friendly man. They often sat together in the mess where Nichol was subjected to viewing image after image of the man's pregnant wife.

Those who heard chuckled. Une frowned without menace until she resumed the briefing.

Mobile dolls. Means by which to fight without soldiers getting hurt. Hollowed out metal. So that men didn't have to hollow their own souls.

Nichol often wished he could lose his soul. He continued to fly patrols with the unmanned suits. Waiting for it to happen.

…

"Gentlemen." Nichol called from the shuttle, gaining the attention of the loitering colonists. Nichol had taken a direct transport to prevent the inexperienced technicians from touching the equipment. "That mobile suit was used against OZ on Earth. So we'll check it for security reasons."

He stepped down and hated the way the colony gravity shifted under his feet. One moment his toes sank like rocks and then next his heels gently lifted as if he might float away.

_"Not much to him is there? But those eyes, so fierce..."_

_"His name is Nikolai. He's someone you can make suffer for what happened to your family."_

_"You promised me that if I joined you..."_

_"Patience, my friend. That promise is going to take time."_ The conversation polluted Nichol's attention as he identified the final location of Tallgeese from the colony data resource station. The voice repeated, pointedly, _"Take time."_

They had taken years. Years... although, Nichol couldn't put bookends to when the worst had started. How it had stopped. His head ached from the effort.

Just ahead he heard a conversation. Une had obviously arrived to meet the guest earlier than expected. He might have cursed the colony communications for putting his shuttle in the bay farthest from the visitor from Earth. For all the appearance of cooperation with the various diplomatic leaders, the colony still liked to make an OZ soldier's life difficult.

"On behalf of my nation..." The same voice from Nichol's memories. He dropped the clipboard. But the clatter was overcome by the sound of that man.

"... my name is Milliardo Peacecraft."

_"Take your time, Milliardo. Let this gift help you transform into who you need to be. Zechs Merquise."_

Nichol pressed against the dark shadow of the wall and looked down into the hanger. Even from the distance, the long blonde hair shone in the lights. It fell loose without the mask, a helmet that inspired awe in OZ until that same man had betrayed their cause. The younger self of that same man had betrayed a small boy long before that.

Nichol whispered, "Peacecraft? No. He's none other than that OZ traitor... Zechs Merquise..."

As if hearing his name even with years and all of space between them, ice blue eyes lifted to the place where Nichol stood.

…

"I need to talk to you," Nichol had positioned himself to intercept the other man on his way between meetings. Nichol fought to keep a gaze that didn't falter. New memories surfaced, expectations. Nichol had never seen those blue eyes. It had always been the mask. The mask and his own reflection. Hating the sight of himself.

"Who are you?" Zechs Merquise asked, now hidden under the new mask of Milliardo Peacecraft.

"Who am I?" Nichol responded, another reflex. A boy had said the same. Arms tied to the desk chair. How long had he been unable to move while the other man sat on the bed to watch. No, not a man. Nichol realized that if he had been ten years younger, so had his tormentor... fifteen? Sixteen? Seventeen.

"I know you." The eyes were Milliardo, but the mouth transformed into a familiar smirk. Nichol lifted his arms, but they did little to hold back the imposing figure as he was maneuvered back into the side hall. "Did you ever lose that sense of insecurity?" The man made a sound low in his throat, part growl and part amused. "Oh I _remember_ you."

"Stay back," Nichol warned.

"You joined OZ." His tone sounded amazed. Zechs lifted a hand and pinched Nichol's chin, turning his head as if inspecting a purchase. "A soldier only needs to follow orders." His laughter blew over Nichol's lips.

"How you conditioned me, bastard." Nichol realized that his hands had become trapped between them. He could feel Zech's heartbeat in his palm.

"Hmm," Zechs nodded. "If Treize knew that you were here, he just might come into space to see."

The blood left Nichol's face and he started to sweat. How had he missed something so obvious? Khushrenada, His Excellency... was _Treize_.

For all Nichol's prideful cunning, how could he overlooked the connection? Another memory surfaced. Someone had threatened to let the birds loose from their cage. Nichol had reached for them, while his captor swung the cage around. The frantic sound of the fragile birds inside had torn tears from Nichol's eyes.

_"Don't! They'll die. They're just pets. They don't know how to survive on their own..." _

_"I should make him release you too, little Nikolai... set you free and see if you come back."_

With no small measure of triumph, Zechs whispered, "Then he would see that you did come back. Come back with me. I have time. You will make time."

Nichol pushed. Unable to get the taller man far enough away, he slid free to the side. He was breathing too heavily for the situation. His palms were damp. His eyes wouldn't focus as they searched and considered an escape. The boy he had been would have known how to submit. How to shut down emotionally. He was losing that skill. Living too often in the moment. Daring to enjoy... his life.

"But your superior abilities can be heightened as a soldier." Words from the past, most definitely spoken in the present. Zechs didn't reach out or try to restrain Nichol. The blonde man simply crossed his arms. "Those were the last words I said to you before I let you go."

"I had no where to go. You took me from everything I'd known when I was twelve." He spat the words with indignation. Nichol knew he was no longer that boy. He hadn't thought of that time for years. He hadn't suspected the power it still had over him. That needed to end.

"He made me let you go." Zechs tilted his head to the side. His smile almost friendly. "I would have kept you forever."

"Kept me where?" Nichol's laughter bordered on hysterical. "In the Tallgeese with you? Or chained me to the hull? That battle in Antarctica? Where then would you have kept me?" His throat choked.

Zechs never listened to what Nichol had said as a boy. He seemed to dismiss Nichol's comments in the present as well. Instead, he said, "But in the end, I understood that Treize had failed to learn his own lesson. Yet." Zechs laughed. "And you... you work for her."

Nichol's mind reached for the connection. "The Colonel?"

"Yes, Une. But Treize seems to have broken his pet. I never..."

"You didn't break me." Nichol protested. He couldn't keep up with the tsunami of memories, new information and the sheer presence of Zechs in front of him.

"Not broken exactly," he said. "I only have to say a few words and you unravel, Nikolai."

"You don't... don't call me that."

"I suppose," Zechs pondered, his tone changing to that of Milliardo Peacecraft. "I have already learned everything that I needed to know from you. I've already become."

He reached out and forcefully gripped Nichol's cheeks, gloved fingers curling around his ears and into his hair. Pressing their foreheads together, Milliardo murmured, "Don't let anyone else tell _you_ who to become."

Then, as if someone had loosed the drain and stopped the sprockets, Milliardo continued on his path and took the heat and panic of drowning with him.

Nichol touched his temples overcome with a brief dizziness in the quiet. What had he been doing? How could anyone find their way in the confusing circular halls of the colonies?

He located the nearest communication panel and requested his shuttle be readied for the return trip to Barge.

...

Only later, much later--when Une pointed her gun at him, did Nichol catch another glimmer of a thought from his youth. She had been with the OZ recruitment team that had visited the shelter for homeless teens. She too had been little more than a child indifferently standing in the back. His younger self had been so afraid that his captors would find him again.

And, after a fashion, they had.

Why had he listened to the Duke? Would he forever be seeking out... orders?

_Don't let anyone else tell you who to become._

Her lenses cast a reflective shine causing Nichol to wince. When it ended, he didn't see the image of himself in the glass. Simply the Lady's eyes looking back at him. And, for the first time, Nichol believed he might, eventually, be wholly restitched together.

~*~  
end

Lady future's arms are lily white  
They stretch before you come inside  
there is room enough  
She is generous  
come on, come up  
while we're still young  
You want to love your life from a prison?  
Of all this uninvited altruism  
The homemade weapons you are fashioning   
Are hellbent on doing us both in  
\- DaVotchKa, _Transliterator_

**Author's Note:**

> Haha. After accepting this writing challenge, I doubt if I'll ever be able to watch that episode of GW the same way again. The part where Zechs asks Une if he can 'do whatever he wants' on the colony. Or I'm picturing a sappy Zechs chasing Nichol around post-EW trying to give him flowers and chocolates and calling him pet-names. With Nichol running to hide behind Dorothy's skirts while waving a restraining order.
> 
> thanks for reading.


End file.
